


The Art of Devotion

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, Big Bang Challenge, Epistolary, F/M, Historical, M/M, extreme loyalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-11
Updated: 2012-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-30 23:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/337149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after the Inception job, Arthur has quietly retired to a safe house in the mountains. Bundles of letters start appearing in in the team's P.O. Boxes around the world, a correspondence between Arthur and Dom. Each package dates from a different period over the last three hundred years, unraveling an ancient secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Call

**Author's Note:**

> With art from Staticlights(endgame on dreamwidth): http://endgame.dreamwidth.org/3286.html

“Arthur,’ Eames breathed over the phone with tight affection, “I have something you need to see.”

“I’m in Thailand, Mr. Eames, can’t it wait?” Arthur stared out his window over the Chicago skyline

“Well, they are quite old, I don’t suppose they’ll disintegrate before you deign to see me.”

“I told you, I’m not interested in helping you value the contents of your warehouse. If you want it done, hire an expert.”

“Not paintings, Arthur. Letters. Very strange ones. I checked that P.O. Box you gave me this morning and there they were, bundled up in ribbon.”

“Are you calling me to brag about a secret admirer?”

“They’re addressed to you and Cobb. Well half to you and half to Cobb. It’s a correspondence, actually, apparently between the two of you.”

“I’ve never written Dom something longer than an e-mail.” 

“These go on for pages. That’s not what’s so strange though. They’re dated over two hundred years ago. I sent a piece of the paper to Yusaf, he’s testing it now.”

“It sounds like someone put some effort into playing a trick on you.” Arthur clutched the phone so hard the plastic creaked in protest. “I have to go.”

A month went by with no further contact. Arthur finished the Chicago job and returned home for the first time in weeks. A missed package slip was stuck cheerily to his door. Frowning, he got right back in the car. A bored postal worker handed him a neatly wrapped little box with no return address label.

Checking it over carefully, he opened it slowly. Inside was a second box with a note stuck to the top in Eames’ terrible handwriting:

_Arthur,_

_After several tests, Yusaf determined that both the ink and paper used verified the age of the letters. I read through them carefully and they do carry the genuine tone of yourself and Cobb. I’m not sure who would perform such an elaborate trick and to what end. I leave them in your capable hands to do with what you will._

_-Eames  
_

Arthur’s dining room table doubled as an office space, the rich mahogany table far more often holding up documents than food. With near ritualistic movements, he filed and sorted the detritus on the table away until it was cleared. He set the second package in the middle where it glared accusingly at him.

“Hello.” He said softly and reached for it with tender hands, unraveling the paper.

The letters freed from their paper prison spilled out, their old envelopes threatening to rupture. He picked the first up, the sweet smell of ceder meeting his nose. Someone had stored them for a long time with great care. His own handwriting slanted across the front, addressing the letter to Professor Cobb ℅ Philosophy Department, Georgetown University, Washington D.C.

Captured, he sank into a chair and delicately drew out the first letter.


	2. Dearest Professor

_October 19, 1841_

Dear Professor Cobb,

I recently read your paper on the nature of dreams in the Journal of Scientific Inquiry. Though I am no kind of scientist or philosopher, I was intrigued by your premise. I have always found dream interpretation to be of the silliest and useless kind of trade. The way you dealt with such superstition was what originally caught my intention. In fact, a friend passed the journal on to me for that very reason as I am often vocal on the subject.

While I disagree with you on several points, I would first like to say that I concur with your overall analysis. Humankind does share primitive fears and appetites that would create universal topics that express themselves in the vulnerable realm of sleep. Certainly when people relate their dreams, there are general themes that emerge repetitively. Fear and anger recycle through nightmares while desire, affection and sated appetites reoccur in more positive dreams.

I object though to your statement that the embellishments on these dreams hold the key to understanding why we dream. I think you are needlessly reaching beyond your original theory. There is no further reason necessary. We once lived in the wilderness, is it so far from the realm of belief that we should remain a little there? Even if only in our nocturnal wanderings?

Also, your style is entirely too romantic for a scientific journal. Nearly Byronic in certain sections. Has your editor no sense of these things? You mention in your forward that it took you a long time to get the article published. I am rather surprised they agreed to print it at all. Perhaps next time you might remove the poetic ramblings about the effect of the moon on man’s imagination?

With Regards,  
Mr. A. Pembrooke

P.S. If you care to send a letter in return, please use the following address:  
Summer Cottage 2½  
Cypress Road  
Deerkill, MA

 

_November 20, 1841_

Dear Mr. Pembrooke,

Has anyone ever told you that you are a very abrupt sort of person? It was pleasing in a way to receive such a forthright letter even if it did dissolve into pure venom by the end. You say you are not a scientist or philosopher, how then do you come by such strong opinions? Are these subjects you have studied or is a more generalized distaste for charlatans preaching dream interpretations and other such madness?

I’m glad to know that someone doesn’t find my general premise to be based in madness. How is that man is so resistant to the idea that we were once savages ourselves, toiling in the darkness? Or that we are quick to return to such a state when provoked?

As to the embellishments on dreams, the clothing we wear, the faces we see and the places we go in our minds must have importance. I know not yet what they might signify, but why would our brains go through such elaborate contortions if not to some end? I must disagree with you on this. The key to understanding dreams, is to understand the minutia of them.

I’m not at all sure how to answer your sally on my style. That is simply how I write. Perhaps I do see the world in the way of Byron and his ilk, but I do truly believe that there is too little beauty in the world. To not pause and admire what is worth admiring would be a crime. That I took long in publishing has rather less to do with my style than my topic which was quite controversial. It was only after significant pleading on my part that the editor would even consider the subject.

Do not hesitate to write me again. I’m interested in hearing all your thoughts on the matter.

Regards,  
Dr. D. Cobb

P.S. I have been to Boston once, lovely city. Is Deerkill far from it?

_December 27, 1841_

Dear Professor Cobb,

I have been told on many occasions that I am abrupt, offensive and cold. Polite society and I have long ago parted ways, in any case. I will not apologize, but say only that if you do not wish more of the same that you discontinue our correspondence after this letter. I cannot anymore change my tone then the color of my eyes.

As to my interest, I have dabbled in many subjects and my interest wanders. I am fortunate enough to currently work in a vast private library for a retired gentleman in need of cataloging. While I have no particular expertise, I read prodigiously from his shelves. Before this current vocation, I traveled a great deal as a private secretary for another man. Seeing the world gives one a very different perspective.

Perhaps you mean your question about man’s rejection of his own beastly nature as rhetorical, but allow me to put forward my own theory. It is difficult on any given day to keep a check on our baser impulses. We do not wish to be reminded how quickly the veneer of civility could be torn away leaving us naked and unchecked.

I still think the minutia of dreams is just that, minutia. Distraction from the real meat of the situation. As long as you persist in believing they matter, the longer they work their magic upon you. Perhaps that is to do with your Romanticism. Terrible plight to suffer from.

Deerkill is not actually a town, but the estate of my employer. He has deeded over several acres to small cottages for his employees. Boston is a day’s ride, but I make the journey frequently to procure books and arrange meetings for him. I like it well enough though I will always be partial to Manhattan. 

Regards,  
Mr. A. Pembrooke

_April 7, 1842_

Dear Arthur, 

I hope this letter finds you before you depart again for Toronto. I really cannot imagine what your employer reads that requires you to travel so widely, but as you seem to enjoy it, perhaps it is good that his tastes are so exotic. I have heard that it will still be quite cold there, but being from New England, you must already be well adjusted to such chill. As a Southern man through and through, I find even Virginia’s mellow winters a touch too cold to be born.

As to the revisions you applied to “Dreams as Cultural Memories”, I must express gratitude and annoyance. While I find you correct on all points, my poor manuscript came out the worst for it. Did you really have to read it ragged and slash so at the sentences? It’s practically whimpered when I slid it out from the envelope. Still, you are right and it needed all of your zealous help. When I made the suggested corrections, my editor was well pleased and agreed to print it with half the fuss as usual. Perhaps you would be willing to look over my next attempt as well? I am not sure the subject will interest you half as well, but your curious mind constantly surprises me. I neglected to ask in my last letter how you came by such a depth of knowledge on the Russian tsars? I talked with one of our Eastern European professors and the facts that you gave me rather startled the man. He was eager to discuss everything with me and was much disappointed when I pleaded only ignorance after the paragraph or so information you gave me in response to my causal inquiry.

I remain unsettled about my current post as you know. I miss the experimentation of my student days and I have wondered if I made the wrong choice in philosophy. Sometimes I look at the grand buildings rising up around me and I itch to get my fingers on their plans, to elaborate and alter them. I cannot imagine now returning to an undergraduate’s education and starting anew, however. 

Maybe it is loneliness that makes me restless. I do not think I have ever spoken to you of my family. I have always senses a reservation in you, that if I did this would not be a confidence you would return. Is that so? In any case, mine are all quite dead, long past. A house fire while I was away at school claimed the entire clan in a single night. My ties within the school are loose, fragile things. Given my pitiful professor’s salary and preoccupation with my topic, I find it difficult to meet friends. 

It occurs to me that I have spoken more to you on paper than any person in my local acquaintance. How strange life is sometimes.

With Warm Regards,  
Dominick

_June 27, 1842_

Dear Dominick,

My most sincere apologies for the lateness of this letter. There was some difficultly in my return to Toronto, a misunderstanding about my cargo that led to a few days of detention in a hospitable prison cell. It all sounds more exciting than it truly was and I was released with apologies all around. The books and I returned safely back to Deerkill and my employer was much pleased by what I unearthed there. I think they shall keep him happy for many months and I can rest easily at home. 

Your poor paper was a strong work indeed and stood up mercifully to my pen’s work. I look forward to purchasing the publication it will appear in, do you know yet when it will come out? I will happily read anything you send me, of course. I have told you before that my interests are varied and I admire your writing and scholarly mind thoroughly.

As to the tsars, I did spend a year in Russia though not among the aristocracy. If you do not like the cold of New England, you would find Russia unbearable. I found it captivating. The people are expressive and wary, very poor, but their culture is fascinating. Everything I learned about Tsar Nicholas I and his family was filtered through peasant experience. They are surely more critical of their ruler than anyone else would have a mind to be.

To the rest of your letter, I have read it several times and I do not know quite how to respond. I too have isolated myself, lack family and friends, but I find the situation more agreeable than you do. I prefer the quiet of my home, the peace to read as I would and discuss my findings with friends that exist to me only on paper. I have had my fill of parties and loud gatherings, I prefer a quieter life now.

If your professional restlessness springs from your loneliness, I can only suggest that you find something that suits you more. You are free, sir. Without family to tie you down or a wife to hold you to promises, you can be whatever you want, try whatever you like. I know you long for more, it comes across in every letter and paper you write. You dream largely and should not be contained in a stodgy office, correcting the work of younger, less talented men. Find a way to build if that’s what you wish. In this, you would be free from my critique, I understand nothing of the inner workings of buildings though I find them lovely to look upon.

With affection,  
Arthur

_August 1, 1842_

Dear Arthur,

I hope this letter finds you in the best of health and quite happy. Your last letter had a touch of melancholy to it, an odd sentiment for such a warm summer. Better to be sad when the trees give up their leaves and snow blankets the earth. Have you some trouble, my dear friend? If you do, confess all to me for pain shared is lessened I have always been told.

Now that I am done scolding you, I must tell you the oddest of news! My editor sent in my paper to a conference without my permission and worst still, it was accepted! I will be in Boston for a fortnight in October. Will you come? It is selfish entirely on my part as I would like to know that I have at least one friend among the audience. And of course without your critical pen, the paper would never have seen the light of day. You must come if only to gain a part of the applause for yourself.

I have secretly always enjoyed public speaking though I fear I’m not much good at it. My romantic nature is inclined to run away with me and I fear my passion comes off as the ranting of a mad man. Certainly many of my students have said as much after one of my long lectures.

I must confess that I am also anxious to meet you in person. I have conjured an image of you that is probably utterly wrong and I would so like to correct it. Do please come.

With Warm Regards,  
Dominick

_November 1, 1842_

Dear Arthur, 

If you still hold any affection for me, I ask that you read this letter and then burn it. I confide the following to you because you deserve an explanation, but I trust that you understand how dangerous it is to put these words to paper.

Please accept my humblest apologies for the events on the night of my departure. I would prefer to say that I was overcome by the wine that we drank or the music. I could as easily blame the moon for shining and the river for flowing underneath it for that matter.

The truth is far more complicated and more simple as you often say. I have told you before that I feel isolated, adrift and unlike my peers. Now you have seen the reason why. These unnatural desires have plagued me since I was a child. Though I have enjoyed the company of women, I am so often waylaid by the promise of a friendly man.

I have tried to fight these demonic urges, but always they return with a vengeance. I thought that I would be safe in your company as your letters and experience painted me a picture of a much older man, not the near youth that greeted me at the train. That first miscalculation kept me wrong footed for the remainder of our time together. I hardly remember delivering my speech or the questions I answered after. I have already received several letters of further inquiry, so I must assume that I did not shame myself in that at least.

The week that we spent together has been one of the happiest and most productive of my life. Your mind is incredible and I felt as if we were picking up a conversation of years rather than a handful of letters. Where I rushed in, you were quick to check me, a service that I could use rather more of in my life. When I faltered, you had a bolstering idea. Such a meeting of minds only stoked the passion that had begun the moment I saw your face.

When I kissed you...that I kissed you, I do not regret though it may cost me the dearest friend I have ever had. It was the only way I had to express all that I felt in that moment. Though I know I can now only be met with rejection and perhaps your disgust, I am forced to wonder if you did not, even in some small part, return my ardor. I had thought that for the slightest second you kissed me back, before we mutually fled the room.

I do not know what else to say, except that I miss you most profoundly.

With Greatest Affection,

Dominick

_November 17, 1842_

Dear Dominick,

Excuse the use of a basic cypher in this note. It is only the merest of safety precautions and one I advise you to use in all our future correspondence. 

Your letter arrived just as I was finally sitting down to write my own and I found it a welcome reprieve. My abrupt departure from the even in question has weighed heavily on me, but I could not in good conscience stay. I too have been burdened with the thoughts of men from a young age, I too have been made isolated by it, though not by that alone.

Our time together resonated deeply with me, not just for imagined carnal pleasure, but as you say for the quickness of our discussion and compatibility of thought. If I stopped your flights of fancy, it was only because I feared they would carry us somewhere from which we could not return. What in your papers comes across as heavy and romantic, in person tripped light and easy from your tongue.

I turned from you in that room because I thought it might be a moment’s aberration for you and I did not wish to bring our friendship to ruination over another impulse that would pass after reflection. I could not bear to be so understood and then turned away. 

Reading your letter has filled me with hope that this is not the case. I have no poetic turn to offer, no flowery compliment to entice you. I can only say that against nature and perhaps God, I find myself very much in love with you. 

Yours,  
Arthur

_July 6, 1843_

Dearest Arthur,

I write this as I travel back from my conference in Savannah, so I hope you will forgive my shaky handwriting and splotches of ink. My home city remains much as I left it, still all grand houses and perfect manners with ladies fluttering behind yards of lace and fans. I found that it was me that had changed, no longer the shy boy who hid in his mother’s skirts nor the bumbling, lonely adolescent who played piano to avoid making conversation.

Instead, I gave my paper to a respectable audience and found it very well received indeed. Several gentlemen invited me to their homes and I think I acquitted myself under the watchful eyes of their wives. The salons that once plagued me have become my arena. I arrived all nerves and left most roundly satisfied. While I still question where my career will take me, I no longer dream of leaving my chosen field for another. There was such an air of promise at the conference! Many new ideas were exchanged and I’ve got at least a dozen line of inquires to follow up. I have included a copy of my notes in this letter for you peruse. 

I miss you terribly. The lock of hair you so kindly enclosed in your last letter has found it’s way into my breast pocket, sealed in a tiny locket against the elements. Do not be angry at my lack of discretion in this matter, I took the preventative measure of adding an inscription from my dearly departed mother that should dissuade any questions. I fall asleep with it in my hand each night. Do say that you can come visit me soon or I will show up on your doorstep before long.

With all my love,   
Dom

_August 25, 1843_

Dear Dom,

I write this as you sleep in my bed, exhausted from your journey. I never thought to take your threat of appearing at my door so literally though I am delighted that you did. Next time, some notice would be appreciated as I’ll now have to journey to the main house for supplies and to explain my leave of absence to my employer. I will complain about this to you later, but truly your presence is a gift. 

I find I must indulge in the very sentimentality that I have taken to your to task for so many times. I like to think myself a practical man, but you undo all my sensibilities. You look angelic in the early morning sun and it is easy to forget how wanton you were only the night before. That I have tasted your skin and heard terrible, wonderful things spill from your lips are erased by the curve of your cheek, the golden shine of your hair.

If you knew how long I have loved you, the intensity and depth, I don’t know if you would run from it. I won’t be posting this letter. I want you to stay with me a little longer, breath deeply your scent and relish the warm light you inevitably bring into my life, even when I know the darkness is coming.

How I love you, Dom. How you break me and remold me when I should long ago have learned better.

Yours Utterly,  
Arthur

_December 30, 1849_

Dear Arthur,

I loathe to be away from you for so long. I dearly wish you could have come with me. As I walk the streets of Berlin, I can hear your stories ringing in my ears. I imagine you eating at the restaurants I choose or standing in awe at the great buildings as I do. I tour gaped mouthed, but they have been unfailingly kind at my hotel to their ‘strange American’ and I am led to all the best places. Did you receive such a welcome when you were here? You must have been a teenager, so perhaps not. 

Herr Professor Enrich has been particularly welcoming and I have spent many dinners with his young family. He does not like some of my questions as he is a man of faith, but I think that he may come around before I am set to move on to Barcelona. I can hardly believe that my little book has brought me so far away from home and to so much acclaim. Of course, I tell everyone that only the relentlessness of my chief editor made the work worth reading. Perhaps it is not discreet to talk so, but most see it only as the harmless affection of an author for his biggest fan.

Do I need say that I miss you? Probably you can tell by my daily letters and postcards, but I want to say it every time so that you never doubt it. I love you, I miss you and I cannot wait to come home. I wish you would reconsider moving to Washington, I’m sure we could find you some useful work there and we could share my apartment or find a larger one. We are advanced enough in age now that no one would trouble two poor confirmed bachelors pooling resources.

I hesitate to end this letter without confiding something, but I do not wish to worry you unduly. It is most likely nothing. Only there have been a few more dizzy spells such as I described to you when last we were together. I have not yet fainted, but only need sit awhile to clear my head. There is some distortion to my thoughts afterward as if I cannot quite grasp my memory. Strange, but do not worry, I have never had a spell last more than a few minutes and afterwards I feel brisk and well again. Perhaps it is only that I am wanting for American air.

With all of my heart,  
Dominick

_January 15, 1850_

My Dearest,

Come home as soon as possible. I fear for your mind. I have seen such dizzy spells before and the loss of memory may only continue.

Come take in the American air. We can walk along the rocky beaches until you are recovered.

Love,  
Arthur

_April 18, 1850_

Dearest Dominick,

I have written letters to everyone you spoke with in Europe and even now, I am arranging passage to Barcelona. I do not know how much longer I can take this.

Yours Eternally,  
Arthur


	3. The Second Call

The last letter, unaddressed and unsent, fell limply from Arthur’s fingers. After a moment’s thought, he picked it back up and slid it neatly back into it’s envelope. He shuffled the letters back into order, pausing here and there to read one that he had skipped over. When he was finished, he tied them back together with the ribbon and slid them back into their box. 

In a fog, he retreated to the bathroom taking a long shower and brushing his teeth without meeting his eyes in the mirror. Avoiding sleep, he retreated to his basement, long ago converted into a shooting range. A few numbers in a discreet keypad opened a wall of weapons to him. Each shot relieved the knot in his chest and the lump in his throat. 

By the time he found his bed, gun powder thick and cloying to his skin, he was too worn out to do anything, but sleep. 

The phone rang as soon as his eyes closed. Irritably, he snapped it up,

“What?”

“It’s Ariadne.” Her voice was sweet and close as though she’d climbed companionably into bed next to him, “How are you?”

“Fine. You?”

“I’m all right. Only...that P.O. Box that you have me check up on here? Something strange showed up today.” 

“Letters.”

“How did you know?”

“Call it a hunch.” He sat up.

“They look kind of frail, yellowed and all. Whoever had them wasn’t preserving them very well. There’s a date stamped on one, it says 1933.” She hesitated, “Did you write them?”

“That would be impossible, clearly.” He said flatly.

“So...what? Someone’s playing a joke on us or something?”

“Or something. Send them to me, I’ll take a look and let you know, all right?”

“Arthur...”

“It’s 2am here, I’m going back to sleep.”

Her package took six days to arrive, but made up for it in beauty. She didn’t just send the bundle of letters, but a brick of cheese and a few other pieces of Paris that he hadn’t known he’d missed. The cheese he ate with crackers and apples, the letters he spread across the table with steady hands. There were far fewer this time, only a handful of notes and letters. Written hastily, the ink smeared across the paper as if the authors were perpetually out of breath.


	4. D and the Kid

_August 7, 1933_

Dear Kid,

It’s about five hundred thousand degrees here. It reeks all the time and the food is terrible. Besides that, its aces in the hoosegow. Every night I only have to look at my little sliver of the sky and I can taste freedom. You’re coming to get me, right? They’re moving up my release date and I got to get out of here. If anything gums up the works, you send Sal instead, you dig? 

-D

_September 12, 1933_

Dear D,

Of course I’m coming to get you, numbskull. Who knows what kind of trouble you’d get in if I left you to fend for yourself? Who was it that told you not to bother with that gin joint anyway? That’ll teach you to listen to me. And look, if you’d just waited, it all would have been legal anyway. Paps are saying Prohibition will be out by the end of the year.

Reminds me, there are some holy rollers living in our old squat and I didn’t have the heart to kick them out. Got us a new sweet place a bit further up the Strip, closer to the action.

-Don’t Call Me Kid

_January 1, 1934_

Dear Kid,

A new year already, can you believe it? I know you’ll call me all sort of names wasting postage to mail you a letter when I’ll see you in a couple of days. Hell, I’ll probably get to you before this does, but still. I got a bad feeling about this mol hanging around. JJ is sweet on her, won’t hear a bad word, but she makes me nervous. 

You left one of your shirts behind and I’ve kept it folded under my pillow at night until it was too wrinkled for starch to fix. I’ll buy you a new one. This is why you shouldn’t leave me alone too long, I go all crazy and maudlin.

Yours,  
D

_April 23, 1934_

D,

Buy milk.

-A

_April 24, 1934_

D,

How do you go to the store and buy everything but the milk? Numbskull.

-A

_October 5, 1934_

Dear Kid,

The breadlines are long today, so I figured I’d dash this off while I wait. There’s a few johns eyeing me suspicious like, but what do they know? A man’s got to keep busy when he’s got an empty stomach. 

So you can probably tell, not much luck here getting work. Everybody is waiting around for something to do, looking lost. It’s a sorry sight for sure. I tried everywhere, but no one needs a guy with half an education and a record for juvenile offenses. You doing any better? You always look more put together than me. Anyone hire you for the shine on your shoes yet?

If not, there’s always Plan B. Though, I got to tell you jail didn’t agree with me so it better be airtight. Let me know. I miss you.

-D 

_January 29, 1935_

D,

There’s a few sawbacks taped inside the second envelope. Heard there’s a lot of hot hands getting into people’s mail these days, figured better safe then sorry. The job here isn’t exciting, but it does pay, so you take those bills and buy a train ticket. Don’t worry about finding anything right now, this’ll all blow over eventually. It’s got to. 

Plan B is out of the question. I like living free even if we’re down to crumbs.

Come Home,  
A

_May 2, 1935_

Kid,

You’re the tops. Thanks for the hat, best present a guy could have asked for. I wore it out today and wouldn’t you know I turned a few dames’ heads? Some new clothes, spring in a guy’s step sure can work wonders. Hope you didn’t spend too much on it though. Gotta put another notch in our belt until that construction project comes through. After that, should be smooth sailing.

By the way, you still make my heart skip a beat when you smile. Just thought you should know.

-D 

_September 14, 1935_

D,

Buy milk.

Love,  
A

_September 17, 1935_

D,

It’s just milk, not calculus. You pass the store on your way home every day. Don’t make me resort to a delivery service, they ask too many questions.  
-A

_October 19, 1935_

D,

If you’re reading this, it must be a good day. Go out and get me a paper, then come right back home. I’m not chasing you around the casinos again.

-A

_December 1, 1935_

Dear Kid,

The hospital is freezing and the nurses are out to get me. They keep telling me you’ve visited, but I know you haven’t. Please don’t leave me here alone. I keep forgetting, but I remember you. I would never forget you. You’re the best thing in my life.

-D

_January 5, 1936_

Dear Sir,

I regret to inform you that the patient, Dominick Cobb, escaped from our facility earlier this week. Due to staff cuts, we were not able to execute a proper search. If he is located, we will notify you immediately. In his last days here, he had lost much of his former coherence and it is likely that he became disoriented in the blizzard after his departure from the grounds. Please prepare yourself for the possibility that your friend is no longer with us.

God Bless,  
Daniel Bliss, Manager  
The Sonnyville Sanitarium


	5. Third Call

His cellphone jangled noisily for his attention at breakfast the next morning. The old rotary style ring breaking his concentration from an article on dream sharing that veered into pure fantasy. Checking the number first, he frowned then reluctantly answered,

“Hello, Dom.”

“Arthur,” The familiar tight snap of Dom’s perpetually stressed tones tightened the muscles across his shoulders, “why do I have a bundle of letters that seems to be written by one of my ancestors in the pick up box?”

“I’m fine thanks, how’re you?” He mumbled.

“What?”

“It’s a prank or something, I’m sure. Just send them to me.” He rubbed his forehead, pushing the paper away.

“Eames called me. And Ariadne. That’s some kind of elaborate prank. Should I be concerned?”

“They’re only old letters, Dom. Nothing incendiary about them.”

“They’re hundreds of years old. They should be in a museum,” Dom must be rifling through them, the faint _shush, shush_ of shuffling papers in the background, “though I guess no one would care about some paint-stained ramblings. Looks like most of them were to some woman.”

“Sophie.” Arthur breathed.

“How did you know?”

“I have my ways,” He laughed rusty and dark, “Send it to me, Dom. I’ll take care of it.”

“Arthur-”

“Care of the usual, hug the kids for me.” He hung up hard and fast, then threw the phone against the wall watching it shatter in a shower of gleaming chips and plastic shards. 

The package arrived the next day with a lengthy angry note attached full of admonishments that Arthur cast aside. The letters he picked up tenderly, setting them next to their cousins. These were far more fragile then their brethren and indeed, quite paint stained. He drew the delicate papers to his nose and the faint scent of lavender sent his breath stuttering with remembered pain and longing. 

The letters were written in archaic French, the handwriting slanted and tangled. It took him time to read it so deteriorated were some of the pages, but every memory was there waiting to unspool and clutch at him, sundering him apart.


	6. The Muses

_April 12, 1721_

My dearest Sophie, 

I cannot tell you how much it pains me to be away from you. Each day I rise and you are not beside me is a cruelty beyond reckoning. I picture you now in your little study, tucked up at your desk, hand smeared with ink as you tackle the days correspondence. Which reminds me, please add a note from me to your next letter to your father. Tell him that the portrait commission is going well and that I think him deeply for the recommendation. I know he finds my continued career baffling, but it is so kind of him to continue to promote it.

Being a wealthy artist is quite different from being a poor one, I have discovered. The last time I was in Paris, I drew sketches of children for shop keepers and fishmongers. Now, I gaze down on the streets I wandered from gracious houses and turn my brush to pampered dogs and ladies.

I confess that I miss the street work as there I was certainly considered quite talented. Among the wealthy, I know I am only passable and many of my paintings will eventually be relegated to less used sitting rooms. I cannot find too much bitterness over it. Perhaps I can soothe my ego by wandering a street or two with my charcoal on a free evening. Do not worry about my safety. Even the simplest vagabond knows that an artist has nothing in his purse worth stealing.

The Duchess has been a kind patroness since my arrival and is a pleasure to paint. Her cheeks are very rosy and her smile warm though her nose will be difficult to flatter. We talk amiablely of music as I work and I have found her to be quite knowledgeable.

Paris is still glorious at night when its worst attributes are hidden away in the dark. I have tucked away in this letter a few small sketches for you, including one of my guest room here. It is done all in greens.

How do you fare my love? I want to know all.

All my affections,  
Dominick

_May 14, 1721_

Dear Dominick,

Next time my heart, do try and fold your drawings tighter. The charcoal streaked all across your letter and I had a time trying to catch the words underneath them all. The skylines were pretty though. I do miss Paris, even if only for the sweet memories of our courtship. Has my reputation yet recovered from the hard blow of marrying you, dear one? I fear I shall be exiled to the countryside forever. A fate I’m sure many will believe worse than death, but you know how I do love the quiet. I miss Paris less and less with every passing season.

That is not at all how I wanted to start this letter. What I wanted to say is that I have very good news indeed. I waited only until I was sure and this past week has confirmed it. I am with child! This news could only be better if you were home to share it with me. When will you be back? The baby will most likely come around Christmas and I hate to think having both the baby and the holiday without you.

I am glad that the Duchess is treating you well and Father was pleased to know it as well. He has spent a lot of time at home lately, claiming to miss the bucolic setting, but mostly I think, so that I will not be home without a male guardian. I endeavor to ignore him most of the time, he does so take on about propriety and flustering about the the drop of the neckline of my gowns. Though he has come to love you, I do not think he has ever quite forgiven my breach of marrying beneath my station. He must fuss over the littlest detail so that I remain presentable in all other realms.

A point of business, have you considered my suggestions of taking on a secretary? Only you are so terrible with details, my love, and I would hate to see you cheated because you cannot keep track of your invoices. He could also be useful here at home as I head into my confinement and cannot attend to my correspondence as I wish. Put an add in the Paris papers if you haven’t already. There should be many fine young men looking for an easy job with a good man. Only do make sure the understand that they would winter in the country at the very least. So many Paris boys do not see fit to leave the city.

Write back soon my love. Please also, send along some of the newest perfumes. I grow tired of the ones I have at home and I don’t trust anyone else but you to choose my scent.

All of my love,  
Sophie

_September 12, 1721_

Dearest Sophie,

Even as I write this, I am packing to come home. Or I should say that Monsieur Brisbose packing. You are a genius as always my love. Monsieur Brisbose suits me down to the ground and takes care of all the things that I had overlooked before. It is truly startling how much faster the commission money arrives in my purse when there is someone tenacious to look after my best interests. I won’t bore you with all the details of his person as you will be able to assess him from yourself when we arrive back at the estate. Which should be by the first week of October. I have one stop to make to do a charcoal sketch of a new babe for a portrait painter to work with and then it will be straight home.

There is little gossip for me to relate as I’m kept too busy with commissions to so much as lift my head from the paper, but I have one thing that I know you will appreciate. Do you remember that foul tight-mouthed Madame Ceour, who made our courtship so highly unpleasant? Her eldest daughter has run off with a groomsman of all things. A taste of bad medicine for that odious woman. I have sent the newlyweds a small amount of money, I hope you will not mind. I cannot imagine they do not need it and I have such sympathy with them.

I have located at last a new perfume for you with which I think you will be pleased. It reminds me of our first long walks together in the gardens. I have laid the scent on my pillow at night to encourage dreams of that time. You will doubtless call me foolish and you are most likely right.

With all my affections,  
Dominick

_January 18, 1722_

Dear Monsieur Cobb,

Let me first rush to ensure you that both your wife and your child are in marvelous health. The boy has not yet slept through the night, but Madame Cobb ensures me that this is normal. The nursemaid is a competent young lady and I will write a strong recommendation on your behalf, if you are amenable, when her time here is over. She has a natural affinity for young children.

The estate is in sore need of help. Madame Cobb has insisted that I look into the management of it while you have no need of me, despite my arguments that I was hired to be your secretary. Since neither of you felt it was necessary for me accompany you on this current commission, I have agreed to correct a few oversights. I fear that the rest of the staff will quickly turn against me as I catch them at their little skimmings. The cook especially has taken advantage of Madame Cobb’s kind nature and the monthly food bill is an elaborate work of fiction. I leave it to you whether or not she should be dismissed for such a thing, but I will certainly be keeping a very close eye on her.

I have attached the request for Madame Toulouse’s portraiture. I do not think it would take you very out of the way of your current journey and would benefit the estate not just in coins. It is rumored that she has the ear (or perhaps other limbs) of several men in powerful positions. Her commission could very well lead to others. There will be dogs involved, nothing to be done about it.

Also enclosed is a pot of red paint and several handkerchiefs. Madame Cobb has only just brought them to me with the fear that you had forgotten to bring both with you and begged me enclose them. It shall make for an ungainly package of a letter.

Regards,  
Monsieur Brisbose

_March 1, 1722_

Dearest Sophie,

Do not fear, my love. This is only a brief posting as I make my way from here to home with only one short stop along the way to purchase canvases. Our dear Monsieur Brisbose has made clear the priority of my return to the estate. Apparently, when I am away too much I threaten the entire wrack and ruin of our little home. He also made it explicit that next time I go, I am to take him with me. Did you know that it is quite out of order to leave one’s secretary always at home? He claims that he is not at all earning his salary. I cannot see how this is so since he seems to have taken the whole place quite under his wing, but there you have it.

I think of you every morning and night, dear one. You, at least, must know that my absences are only those of the most necessary to earn the money that keeps us well appointed. I wish most fervently that I was born a rich man and never had to leave you for even a single day, but the Lord has not been so kind. There is a reprieve though, I believe there is nothing more to keep me on the road until summer. We shall have all of the sweet scented spring together.

With all of my love,  
Dominick

_August 5, 1722_

Dear Monsieur Brisbose,

I must thank you for your continued discretion regarding the events of this July. You are more of a gentleman then I deserve and a better man then many would ever guess. I find though that the oppression of the truth ways heavily on my chest and makes it difficult to breath. I have written my husband a letter confessing it all and sent it just this morning. It will likely be weeks until I receive his reply of condemnation or forgiveness. I was very clear in your total lack of guilt in the matter and will use what little power I may retain to ensure that you do not have to abandon your position if you wish to keep it. You are uniquely suited to my husband and I would hate for you both to lose that working rapport. He mentioned many months ago that you had wrote to tell him that you were meant to be at his side. Did you foresee my indiscretion?

Or did you, as I know suspect, reciprocate my illicit affections? You are not made of stone after all and our long dinner conversations could not have been wholly pretense on your part. Clearly I misread your interest.

I can only hope that if you ever had affection for me that it remains intact through the consequences of my confession. Perhaps one day you may even think of me as a friend or a sister.

I’ll leave this note on your pillow and please, have the kindness to consign it to the flames.

Regretfully,  
Madame Cobb

_August 5, 1722_

Dearest Husband,

A braver woman would have waited for you to return home for this confession, but I am not that woman. I cannot stand to think of your lovely blue eyes going all to ice with hate and anger. You are still the center of my world and I have never for a day regretted marrying you. It was not out of vengeance or anger that I acted. Only loneliness. The estate is so quiet without you, even the baby does not alleviate it. You promised me the spring and we had a scant two weeks before you were called away again. I saw you more often when we were in our courtship and then I had the comfort of my sisters and friends.

You should have heeded Monsieur Brisbose’s words, my love. You cannot leave me a handsome, smart young man, eager to help and then abandon me over and over and expect nothing to come of it. It is fortunate only that you choose the most ethical and devoted creature as secretary if not for a wife.

We two have become thick as thieves here. Each morning he pours my coffee before seeing about the day and at night, we dine together and speak of literature and all other manners of fanciful things. He is quite well-spoken. The companionship was like water to the parched earth of my tender feelings. He did not try to woo me, was only an attentive friend, but I read far too much more into it.

I came to him one night, when the household was asleep and made a very frank offer. He did not need even think of it, lest you assume the worst, but said no so firmly and staunchly that I found myself back in my own bed long before I knew quite what had happened. He has since treated me as though nothing at all occurred. 

I must confess it to you though because otherwise all that comes after is pretense. I went to his room with all intentions of committing adultery. And worse still, it would have been not only of the body, but the heart. I love you, my dearest, love that I valued enough to let it tear me from the bosom of my old life, but like so many married women, I have discovered I have room in my heart for more than one love. 

Do not despise me. I was a weak silly girl when you married me, so I hope that the weak silly woman I have grown into will not be an object of your scorn. 

With all of my love,  
Sophie

_October 5, 1722_

Dear Madame Cobb,

I hope this brief note finds you and little Edmund well. We arrived in Nice late last night with little fanfare. Monsieur Cobb is doubtless writing you as I set my own pen to paper, but I considered it prudent to take this opportunity to have a private word. 

Since the night of your unexpected offer, our friendship has foundered and that saddens me most profoundly. I hope you do not imagine that my dedication and affection was lessened by what was only a momentary weakness on your part. It greatly relieves me that you and your husband have reconciled. I can assure you that now that I travel with him, he will not spend so much time away from home to reduce you to such a state.

It has also occurred to me that perhaps you took my rejection as some kind of commentary on your charms. This is patently untrue. You are a beautiful, wise and kind woman such as I can only hope that all good men should be blessed with. From the moment we met, I knew we would be fast friends and it displeases me greatly that anything has come between our mutual fondness.

It has nothing to do with you at all, but rather a previous promise to another person. They are unable to return my care nor even fully aware of it, but I long ago gave them my heart and could not imagine sullying that for even a moment. So please do not take my rejection as any kind of personal slight.

Your devoted servant,  
Monsieur Brisbose

_January 7, 1723_

Dear Sophie,

I’ll be spending the day out riding with the Lafyettes. Father and son came around early this morning looking for a little winter sport and I confess I’m feeling restless myself with this great cold snap keeping us all under lock and key.

I’ve told the cook to make you a late breakfast as you are most comfortably asleep as I prepare to leave. 

Brisbose is in the drawing room. I’m not sure he’s slept at all, actually. Try to coax him to eat with you, my dear. I wish you wouldn’t separate so from each other just because we are all together in the house. Maybe it is unwise, but I love you and cannot go back to not trusting you nor him. If he is to stay on as you implored me and as I feel is the right thing to do, I cannot spend all the years of his employment in a froth of worry. 

I should be home for dinner, but will send word if not.

All my love,  
Dominick

 _May 10, 1727_

Dearest Husband,

How is London? I trust this finds you in good company and spirits, despite the dreary reputation of that city. We are quite well here at home. I must admit, your last letter home troubled me somewhat. Perhaps you should not have left so early after getting over that terrible flu? Please reassure me that you are fully recovered.

You would be so proud of your son, husband. He has taken up your pencils and started scribbling all sorts of wonderful drawings. Their charm may only be in the eyes of his mother, so I’ve enclosed a few for you to verify. The subjects are those that capture the imagination of a small boy, of course and you’ll find your own horse as well as Monsieur Brisbose’s sword. Apparently the fascination with weaponry is a very early one. 

I have not let the house run to seed upon your departure. Everything is quite properly handled and tidy. I hope you will appreciate this change in my constitution upon your return home. I know that Brisbose will be well pleased not to have to correct my little messes. It helps that Eddie has gotten older and is more content to take lessons quietly while I go about my business. We still go run outside as soon as we’ve both finished our work to wander the the fields. I’ve taught him the names of all the flowers and weeds that I know. I’ll have to order books to keep up with him.

Please do write me as soon as possible, you know how I worry. Tell Brisbose to write me if you are indisposed.

With all my love,  
Sophie

_August 15, 1727_

Dear Madame Cobb,

He has worsened and grown frequently delirious. We will return home as soon as possible. I am not sure what can be done. 

Regards,

Monsieur Brisbose

_October 17, 1727_

Dear Madame Cobb,

I have searched every coastal town, inquired with every captain of every possible kind of vessel down to the smallest rowboat. No one has seen or heard a man answering to Monsieur Cobb’s description. I will not give up, but I have begun to despair. His condition was so deteriorated that I cannot imagine that he would have long survived on his own.

He was a good man, one of the best I have ever known. 

Regards,  
Monsieur Brisbose

_January 3, 1728_

Dearest Arthur, 

Please come home. There is no sense in this. Let us grieve together as a family. As he would have wanted.

In grief,  
Sophie

_June 8, 1728_

Dear Sophie,

There are too many things that I cannot explain to you. Too many secrets that are too fantastic to be thought the truth. I once told you that my heart belonged to another and I must follow that call. By the time you read this I will be gone. I cannot stay here and replace your husband. I am no fair replacement. But know this is no abandonment. I will write as often as I can and I will come to visit if you would still welcome me. I wish to see Edmund grow up into the fine man I know he can be and to know you as a lifelong friend.

Our friendship will remain a bright beacon in a world that is too often dark with sorrow. It pains me to leave your side, but it would pain me more to stay. 

Your humble servant,  
Arthur

_October 17, 1750_

Dear Arthur,

To start on a melodramatic note, I must confess that this may be the last note I write to you. The weakness that I mentioned briefly over the summer has returned in force and this time the doctor holds little hope that I should recover. If it is my time, then I am ready to go. This life has grown heavy and weary. My son is grown and married happily, what else could a mother aspire too? 

I am ready to join my dear Dominick. Is that heartless to say? Certainly, Jean-Paul has been an excellent husband these past fifteen years and I have wanted for nothing. Still as you must know, it is Dominick who will live always in my heart. I wish I could be buried next to him, but it lacks something with an empty coffin to rest near. I still wake every morning wondering what must have become of him.

I think of you often. Far more often then I write. I imagine you in some romantic windswept moor, a picturesque cottage looming behind you, but I suppose Scotland is nothing like that really. Still, the image comforts me. You belong somewhere with dramatic sweeping scenes. I imagine you standing as a pillar of strength against the strong winds. Does your employer let you go for long walks? He must, you have spoken so kindly of him over the years. 

I have often wondered about your untouchable, secret love and this shadowy man. Are they one and the same? You needn’t say. Your secrets will remain safe from me to the last breath.

It only occurs to me now that despite being my dearest friend, I know so very little about you. We have whiled away many years talking of literature, news and memories of our shared time with one man. I could not for the life of me recall the name of your mother or father, what you might have done before you met Dominick... but you must have said once and it is only my failing memory. 

If this is the last thing I say to you then I shall be content: I love you, my friend.

Yours,  
Sophie


	7. The Return

Arthur watched the sun set on the mountains. Light fractured over the hills, bathing his face in streaks of gold until the last sliver of warmth disappeared over the horizon. A glass of whiskey hung numbly from his fingers, ice slowly melting, diluting the contents.

His cellphone rang, shattering the fragile peace. With a soft sigh, he lifted it from his pocket and flipped it open.

“Hello, Dom.” 

“Arthur,” a soft sigh trickled through the small speaker, “what is going on? Eames and Ariadne sent me a package with the other two sets of letters and two more just showed up in the pick up box this morning.”

“Ah.” He lifted the glass to his lips, the strong sent of liquor filling his nose, a fresh clean burn, “Send them on to me then.”

“I want an explanation, Arthur.”

The first sip scoured down his throat.

“What if I told you that they are all exactly as they appear to be?” 

“I’d say you better tell me the whole story and not over the damn phone.” Dom snarled. “No more riddles, Arthur. Come home.”

He booked a flight in minutes. There was no point delaying the inevitable any further. The overnight suitcase that he kept by the door would sustain him for a weekend jaunt to California, but he opened and checked its contents just in case. The ritual of it soothed him.

Packed and booked, he went back to the basement and entered a different code in the the firearms security pad. Behind him, a vault door unlocked. Fireproof, twenty feet below ground level and protected by the best security Arthur could install without outside help, the vault contained four large leather portfolios stuffed to their seams. He tucked each of them gently into a custom made briefcase and carried it all upstairs, leaving the vault door open behind him. It was devoid of all its secrets now.

On the flight out, he slept, the deep untroubled sleep of someone who could no longer dream. The PASIV had given him that gift and for that alone, he loved it. 

When he disembarked and exited the endless purgatory of gates, Eames was waiting with a handmade sign that read ‘Bloke in an Overpriced Suit’. His shirt was a burnt orange and his hair stuck straight up as if he’d come here right after rolling out of bed.

“I take it Ariadne is back at Dom’s house.” Arthur sighed, “This is between Dom and me.”

“Too late for that.” Eames grinned, tossing the sign towards the garbage. “Come on then.”

“You can’t drive in America.” Arthur followed him out to a low sleek rental car and held his hand out for the keys. Eames handed them over without a protest, raising alarm bells in Arthur’s head loud enough to wake the dead. “How angry is he?”

“Fireworks, darling, fireworks.”

Indeed, when they arrived, Dom was waiting on the porch, arms crossed and eyes kindled in fury. Ariadne stood at his elbow, vibrating with well meant concern. 

“Inside.” Arthur said, brushing passed all of them to enter the house. “And sitting down.”

“You’re going to explain?” Dom asked, his voice skittering over Arthur’s skin, settling like pins underneath.

“I’m going to tell a story.” He caught Dom’s eyes with his own. “And it will be true.”

He claimed an armchair near the door while Ariadne and Eames alighted on the long couch stained with fruit juice and markers. Dom sat heavily on the loveseat that had born witness to many friendly nights between husband and wife. Arthur had watched them from this very armchair too many times to count. But Mal was gone now, from reality, from dreams.

“A long time ago, there was a monastery on a mountain in the middle of the sea...”


	8. The First Story

The monks came to Skellig Michael for the isolation. It was often said to be the loneliest place on Earth though I never found it that way. My father brought me there when I was a child, boasting of my visions though I did not understand them myself. I must have been an unusually quiet child for them to accept me into their little fold instead of sending him to a larger monastery. I do not know how old I was when I took on the brown robes and watched his tiny boat return to a distant shore. Fog obscured his passage and that was the last I knew of the outside world for many years.

The abbot, seven monks and a child clung to that ancient rocky surface as tenacious as the garden we grew. I learned to love the cry of the seagull, the feel of dirt in my hands and the rhythms of prayer. Sometimes I would make the short, perilous journey over Christ’s Saddle to the Hermitage on the other peak. Even in that quiet distant place, there were those that preferred still more solitude. I would spend days in the near empty corner of the sky, saying nothing and utterly at peace.

I often imagined dying on the island, laid to rest in the tiny crowded graveyard after long years of service. The thought pleased me. I would die as I had lived, quiet, unremarkable and close to God.

I was watching over our few sheep on a chilly morning, I know not the year or month. A dark shadow in the water caught my eye and I moved to higher ground. A small ship was making it’s way towards the island, the rowers struggling against the tide. I checked first for any sign of Viking province, but could make nothing out. I yelled out and my call was carried across the island until I was surrounded by the brothers, all talking at once in their confusion.

“Pilgrims or a new brother or supplies, perhaps, it matters not.” The Abbot decreed, silencing the flock. “Go about your work, lads, it will be hours yet before they can land and reach us.”

The others scattered reluctantly. I tried to keep my eye on the sheep and my mind on God, but to no avail. I looked longingly out over the sea, eyes fixed to the tiny ship until I could make out three or four men, their silhouettes dancing over the waves. My curiosity welled up over and over until finally I could stand it no more, I herded the sheep home early ready to brave the scolding I would received.

It never came. The Abbot himself had ended his work early to wait at the top of the steps. All of us went through the mechanics of prayer and supper, but we all of us were watching the Abbot for signs of arrival. Jacob, the stingiest of us, cooked an entire extra bowl of stew without anyone asking.

The moon had well begun her climb when the Abbot cried out, ‘Hail, friends, come inside and rest your weary bodies in God’s house.”

“Thank you, Father.”

There were three of them, though one so massive I might have been forgiven for mistaking him for two people. In the darkness, I could see only their forms against the starry sky.

“To bed with you, Arthur.” David rested a hand on my shoulder.

“But-”

“No. There will be time enough for you meet our guests. Let the Abbot have his talk with them and see what kind of men they are first.”

“No one else is going to sleep.”

“No one else would interest them. We are old, worn men.” He gave me a gentle shove toward the clochán that I usually bedded down in. It was chilly without the four other brothers I shared it with, so I curled up in my blankets shivering and resentful.

I woke with the first light of dawn and headed outside to relieve myself. Joshua had already begun the cook fire for the morning meal, but otherwise all was quiet. I moved to my spot by the cook pit, warming my hands a little on the flames. 

That was when I saw him for the first time. He walked to the fire pit, his strange and well made clothes flowing about him. The first new face I had seen in years and I found it so pleasing. It was a foreign kind of face with high cheekbones and blue eyes the color of the winter sky.

“May I share your bowl?” He asked, artlessly dropping to sit next to me. 

“Yes.” I stared at awe at his profile, looking my fill even as Joshua muttered at me under his breath.

My wooden bowl received a double portion of the oatmeal and we shared my roughly carved spoon, trading it back at forth. I marveled at his neat habits, his hands clean of the dirt that had worked itself permanently into my skin.

“Can you show me the island?” He asked, all eagerness. “I want to see it all.”

“I have to tend the sheep.” I wanted desperately to say yes, but duty had always come first. “Come with me? I can point everything out from there.”

“Yes.” He got to his feet and offered me a hand up.

When I clasped his wrist, something painful shifted in my chest. For the first time in my life, I wanted. I couldn’t have put any name to the formless longing when I felt the warmth of his skin under my fingers. I saw his eyes widen and knew that it was mutual. Overwhelmed, I retreated into familiar silence as I let the sheep out, herding them urgently up the hillside. 

Before I could point out a single feature of my home, he took my hand again.

“They say you can talk to angels.” He said, hushed and interested.

“No.” I swallowed hard, thinking of David’s worry. Was this what he feared for me? “I saw one once. That’s all.”

“I dreamed of Heaven. That’s why I was brought here.” He searched my face though I don’t know for what. “They hope if I stay in a godly place, I’ll do it again. Bring them back news.”

“I don’t know that it was even an angel.” I admitted for the first time. None of the brothers had ever spoken to me of my experience. I wonder if they had believed my father’s story or just taken me in out of the goodness of their hearts. “Only that I got lost and heard a voice that guided me home.”

“I don’t think it was Heaven.” His hand in mine tightened. “It was a golden kingdom, but dreams are like that, aren’t they? No one spoke to me or anything.”

“It’s better here. No one will bother you.”

“They asked so many questions.”

“I know.”

We watched the clouds shift around the island in peace for a while.

“My name is Arthur.” I offered.

“I’m Dominick.” He smiled and I was blinded. 

They left him there, close to God and clutching my hand for comfort. The monks encouraged our friendship and the days passed in perfect companionship. During the day, he learned the chores of the island by my side until he could take up his own. He had a deft hand at weaving. Many rainy afternoons, I repaired fishing nets as he sat the loom. He would tell me stories of the world. I did not miss it even with his colorful descriptions. In return, I taught him to read, scratching out runes and slanting Latin letters in the dirt as had been done for me by the Abbot.

At night our pallets pushed tightly together, we slept with our hands in a tangle. Close friendships were not uncommon among the isolated monks and they made no comment at our casual intimacy. Perhaps they thought us too innocent to discover that there was more. Or perhaps, we ate from the same bowl and slept in the same bed for so long that they came to think of us as a single entity. 

“Come with me to the Hermitage.” I asked him one clear afternoon when our chores were done. “There’s no one there now and I want some quiet.”

“Of course.” He laughed, turning his face to the sun. “It is a good day for a walk.”

We walked together, our thighs and arms brushing together, fingers tangling and untangling. I caught him watching me and he blushed darkly.

“Why do you look away?” I asked, nudging him again.

“You look different with your hair cut so short.” He reached out for my newly shorn locks, rubbing his hand over my scalp.

“No more different then you.” Joshua had handled him more gently in deference to his fine gold hair no doubt and left more to protect him from the summer’s sun. 

Emptied, the Hermitage looked lonely. I stopped at the garden plucking weeds.

“Look!” He tugged on my robes, “Blackberries!”

“I wonder how they got here.”

“The birds, I think.” He reached into the bush to pluck a berry free. “They carry the seeds in their feathers.”

“Really?”

“Think, Arthur. How else do you get life on a barren distant island?” He smiled, “Open your mouth.”

I did, letting him put the first berry on my tongue. The sweet-sour taste overwhelmed me and I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, he was still watching me rapt, ready with another berry. He fed me slowly, one at a time until I was taking them from his fingers, licking them as they passed between my lips.

“Arthur....” He breathed rapturously. 

He kissed me then, clumsy and ardent. I had never seen anyone do such a thing before, but it felt immediately right and I drew him closer. By the time we returned to the monastery our lips were stained dark with blackberry juice and passion. No one noticed though I know we both felt monumentally different.

After that there was no stopping us. Dominick’s curiosity and my unslackable thirst for him led to all the ways that two young men could know each other. In our fever, we imagined that we had invented such passions. I wrote runes into his skin with my tongue and he made my name a blessing.

Years passed like that with never a harsh word turned against us. I think now, we were tremendously lucky for that. We were allowed to flourish with each other until we truly were more like one entity.

One afternoon, alike as so many before it, he tripped and fell paying too much attention to the sky and none to his feet. I joked with him about it as I bandaged the wound. Neither of us were concerned about it and joined evening prayer as usual. In the morning, I changed the bandage and we went about our work.

By evening though, it was clear something had gone wrong. The wound had started to smell and turn his skin dark. I washed it with sea water though he writhed at the sting of salt in the wound. He slept badly that night and in the morning, it had grown only worse. The skin pulsed hot and ugly under my palm. That wound ate him alive as I watched helplessly on. I cleaned it, pressed compresses and medicines to it and spoke every prayer I had ever learned over him. He was quickly weak and wrecked, grasping on to me with terror in his eyes.

In the darkness of the night of the fifth day since he had fallen, I could see that he was failing.

“Please,” I whispered, calling out now not to the God I had loved my whole life, but to the world, to anyone that would listen, “please, please save him. I’m not ready to lose him. Please, please, angel you had mercy on me once, please have some for him...”

I do not know where She came from. One moment it was only the two of us in the clochán and the next this woman. Even without comparison to other women, I knew her to be beautiful. Her robes were rich and impossibly dark, her haughty face was drawn in sharp lines.

“Child, who are you to plead for this miserable life?” She asked and her voice cracked with thunder.

“You’re not my angel.” I lifted Dominick’s pain wracked body to me, shielding him as best I could.

“I wear many faces,” She lifted one imperious eyebrow, “I asked you a question.”

“My name is Arthur, I’m a monk of Skellig Michael.” I lifted my chin, meeting her arrogance with defiance.

“Why should I save your friend, little monk?”

“He’s a good man.” I stumbled, searching for something that would persuade this inhuman being, but could find nothing.

“What is goodness to me?” She sighed, “Why do you plead so, surely the other monks that have died since you came here were also good men?”

“He’s a part of me!” I cried out. “If he dies, I will lose myself.”

“Ah. Love.” She spat the word as though it hurt her. “What use is human love that passes so frivolously by.”

We had never said we loved each other. Love was what we felt for God and no other, but as soon as she spoke it, I understood it. Of course I loved him, perhaps even in terrible blasphemy, more than God. 

“My love does not pass.” I stroked Dominick’s hair, the silken fall of it still as beautiful to me as the day I first saw him. “It is not frivolous.”

“I’m sure you think it so, but if I were to let him live, you would soon grow tired of him. Ten, maybe twenty years and he would be a stranger to you. That is the way of mortal hearts.”

“Not mine,” I growled, “I would love him with every year I have left.”

“That is not so long a time, little monk.” She laughed, “that would prove nothing at all.”

And then she smiled and I feared.

“I will make you a bet. If you accept then your friend will live. If you reject it, he will die.”

“What is the bet?”

“A simple one.” Her eyes pierced mine, “I will bet that if you live a thousand years, you will not sustain your love.”

“I cannot live that long.”

“I can make it so you both can. Not many get such a chance. The moment your heart is untrue, you will both die.”

“What about his heart?”

“It is not his bet.” Her smile got impossibly larger, “he can love where he will. Let his inconsistent nature be your test. To him, I will bestow the gift of forgetfulness. He will build many lives while you live out your single span. If you have stayed true by the end of that not only will you gain more years of his miserable life, but I will also grant you a single wish. If you fail, I take you both to my home and you will be my servants until the end of time.”

“This is a devil’s bargain.” I spat, but Dominick’s breath stuttered in his chest and I faltered.

I knew I should let him die, to take his just reward in heaven, but I did not want to be alone in the world. To kill myself would mean separating us for eternity, but how could I live out my life without him?

It was selfish and cruel, but I have long ago given up the guilt for it. She was persuasive and I was a naive child. I agreed. No ritual or words were spoken, she only lay a hand on my forehead. The cold that seared through me stole all thought and I sank into darkness.

In the morning, Dominick was healed. The miracle was lauded among the brothers and I never spoke of the woman. Dominick, always rich with laughter, grew only happier and lighter even as I, with the new burden weighing upon me, turned darker and more thoughtful. A dozen times I almost told him, but in the end I held my tongue. I loved to see him happy, praying with an open and free heart.

The rest you can guess from the letters. It started subtly. A few misplaced items and stumbles that confused, but didn’t concern him. I watched him carefully, stayed by his side when it was possible. We prayed for clarity, his body pressed closed to mine in the darkness. Then he woke to find me a stranger. I shook him until he knew me.

“I don’t understand.” He kissed me in the dark, “You’re the most familiar thing to me. How could I forget you?”

“It’s not your fault.” I wept and he wiped my tears away. “It happens.”

I thought that at least I could keep him near me. That even if he forgot me, I could teach him again and again. I was wrong.

We had visitors and he, in his clever madness, stole one of their boats while they feasted with us. I went to our rooms, gathered my stone knife, blankets and some dried food. I bargained passage with them back to the island. All the brothers begged me not to go. Everyone assumed he had died, but She had told me that he could not and I believed her.

I left my beloved home without so much as glance back. I no longer cared about being buried close to God. I only knew I must keep the terrible bargain I had made to save the both of us.


	9. The Last Story

“Arthur,” Eames began, then stopped, a troubled look painted large over his features. Araidne twitched uncomfortably on the couch.

Arthur had already dismissed both of them from his mind. All of his formidable attention was on Dom. Who stared back at him with equal care. For the first time in many years, they studied each other afresh. Arthur was painfully intimately familiar with Dom’s body from the delicate curve of his lips to the hard planes of his chest and the hint of softness at his belly. A man fully grown into himself, solid and dependable. A man that was a stranger to himself.

“Show me.” Dom said quietly.

“Show what?” Ariadne looked bewildered between them.

“The evidence.” Arthur turned to the briefcase and pulled out the thick portfolios. When he opened it, the first spanned the entirety of the coffee table. Inside were thick dossiers, some yellowed with age, others freshly re-typed or scanned onto fresher paper.

“You had thirty-two children that I have discovered. There were many times when I lost track of you and I cannot tell what might have happened. I keep tabs of all the children of your lines. There are currently sixty-three of them living.” He tapped a stack of paper toward the end. “Your genes hold strong. Some of them look quite a bit like you.”

“Thirty-two...” Dom trailed off, flipping slowly through the papers.

“So he cheated on you?” Ariadne leaned forward, reading upside down.

“How was he to know?” Arthur raised an eyebrow, “Or should I hold him accountable for the curse?”

“Still, you must have been jealous as hell.”

“Not particularly. Jealousy would have been a waste of our time.” He smoothed the dossiers back into place and before closing the portfolio again and opening the next. “Your degrees.”

All four of them regarded the stack quietly. This time Eames reached out and leafed through them, letting out a low whistle.

“Guess you were always an academic type.”

“There’s one for psychology in there somewhere.” Arthur shrugged, “but generally it was art, architecture and philosophy.”

“The next one is the art, isn’t it?” Ariadne snatched up the third portfolio, spreading it wide over her lap, “Oh my god...Dom...”

Charcoals, pencil, crayon, watercolor and even some unbound oil paintings spilled out, all carefully preserved in archival plastic sleeves. Their long stay in his climate controlled storage had left them only a little yellow and ragged at the edges. 

“Careful.” Scooping a few stray papers from the floor, Arthur re-steadied the portfolio on her lap. “Some of those are valuable.”

“The style varies...but the signature stays the same.” Her eyebrows knit together. “Well, ok it looks messier in later pictures, but the arch of the D and C are the same.”

“Style is dictated by the time.” Eames moved to look over her shoulder. “If we are to believe all this, then it would only make sense that it would mutate slowly.”

“Look at this!” Ariadne pulled loose an elegant pencil sketch, all smooth romantic lines. “Arthur...”

Arthur knew the drawing well, he was the subject after all. He sat at a desk looking back over his shoulder as if to catch a glimpse of someone running by. The look on his face was one of naked longing, his whole body taut, ready to leap up into pursuit.

“Give it here.” Dom reached out across the table and wearily, Ariadne slid the sketch into his hand.

“Philadelphia, just after the Revolutionary War. You loved America from the beginning,” Arthur provided, “you’d fought in the war, but already forgotten about it. You were studying law when I found you and I presented myself as a fellow student.”

“Were we happy?” Dom’s hand shook, the paper wavering in his hand.

“You were. You usually are...were. I think the weight of years caught up with you too the last few times. You’ve been slowing down, growing more melancholy, more thoughtful. More reckless too.” Arthur frowned, “Though you know, every time I explain it, that’s the question you ask me first.”

“You’ve told him before?” Araidne cut in.

“Dozens of times.” He shrugged, “I had more scruples early on, which didn’t work out well. Your village was small and you knew everyone in it intimately. The curse protected Dom, made him fit wherever he wound up, but not me. I would show up and try to make him recognize me, make him understand. Usually I would just be run out of town. Once they set me on fire, I changed my tactics after that.”

“On fire?” Ariadne lifted an eyebrow.

“I got better.” He held out one flawless hand, “I don’t heal any quicker than anyone else, but I can come back from anything. Her little joke, I suppose. After that, I didn’t bother trying to tell him for a long time. I watched from a distance and bided my time while I tried to track Her down again. I heard stories occasionally, rumors of what she might have been. They never came to anything.”

“Why now?” Dom pressed a hand to the smooth leather of the closed portfolios, “Why did the letters surface now?”

“Because its time, isn’t it?” Eames’ breath was taut, catching on each word, “You sent the letters to us.”

“Not intentionally.” Crossing back to his chair, Arthur sat slowly, lips pressed together, “I don’t know the exact date it happened. Whenever a life would end, I’d gather what evidence there was and scatter it. Some I kept in my safe houses, some I entrusted to banks and law firms with strict instructions to send them on at certain date. If something happened...if I failed or if I judged the date correctly...trusted associates would have the keys to the boxes and could return everything to Dom. I missed a check-in during the inception job. I didn’t realize until Eames called me and by then it was too late.”

“An easy mistake to make.” Eames repeated flatly. “This was what...an elaborate suicide note then?”

“Who said anything about suicide?” Ariadne looked between the two of them.

“If you had lived a thousand years and would be granted only one wish when it was over?” Eames laughed mirthlessly, “It’d be to die. I know it would be for me, anyway.”

“No!” She turned on Arthur, “You wouldn’t.”

“I’m tired.” He said softly, “You cannot imagine how very tired someone can become.” 

“So you would have just left us with this great mystery of letters and dropped dead discreetly somewhere? How could you be so selfish?”

“How could I not?” He rubbed slowly at his eyes, “If you’re very lucky, you’ll live another eighty years, see out a whole century. I would stay your friend because I don’t have enough of those, but it would become difficult to explain as people started to mistake me as your son, then your grandson. Eventually you die and I would still be here, standing at the grave site of another person I cared about. How many times would you wish that on me? How can you conceive of all the times its already happened, what that does to a person?”

“And what about me?” Fury waking in his voice, Dom turned on him, “Would you just leave me to cycle through lives forever?”

“The curse would be broken. You would be free to live out a normal span and die.” He didn’t shrink from the anger, but met it with his own. “It’s the best gift I have. You wouldn’t have known anything was different.”

“I deserved to know.” He made one wide gesture that drew in the portfolios, the letters and Arthur’s own person, “My God, Arthur, all of this...this... a thousand years! How could you just...”

“Because I love you.” A soft, wholly un-Arthur like smile crossed his lips, “Loving you has been my art, my philosophy and my purpose. I can definitively say that I know you better then you know yourself. You were happier not knowing.”

“I’m going to go make some tea.” Ariadne inched towards the kitchen and Eames rapidly followed, leaving them alone.

“How did you hide this?” Blue eyes narrowed, “You grew, changed over time like everyone else...”

“I’m still capable of change. And this life has been such a radical departure. Living in dreams! You can’t...it was a miracle to me, a place to escape.”

“Why didn’t I ever see traces of this in your mind?”

“Will power.” He raised an eyebrow, “I haven’t taken anyone, but you to my bed in all this time. I’ve gotten very good at exercising it.”

“I can’t be worth all this.” Dom slumped backwards into his couch, “No one could be worth this. Chastity, faithfulness, devotion...it’s a fairy tale. ”

“You didn’t have to deserve it.” Arthur moved from the armchair to the couch, close enough to smell Dom’s sweat and faint aftershave, “You didn’t earn it. That happened all a very long time ago between two boys that I wouldn’t recognize anymore.”

“I don’t love you.” 

“I know. You’re my world, but I’ve very rarely been yours.”

“What do you want from me then?”

“Nothing, “ Arthur sighed, “I’ve never wanted anything from you. You demanded I come here, remember?”

“Right, because you wanted to be left alone like a dying animal.” Dom ran his hand through his hair until it was utterly disheveled, “Damn you.”

“I would say that was taken care of a long time ago.” He leaned against the back of the couch watching the soft golden strands of Dom’s hair settle slowly back into place.

“You don’t sound even a little bitter.”

“I’m not. I saw amazing things. A world so scattered and isolated has become one of near instant communication. Governments which once rested solely in the hands of monarchs spread out among nations. Rights fought for and won. There’s a lot of ugliness, but there is so much beauty too.” He stared up at the ceiling. “And there was you. And your children, your wives and mistresses. It was more than enough to make up for the rest.”

“I need to think.” Dom muttered into one hand.

“I’ll take a walk.”

It was still afternoon outside and the sun blinded him until he fished out a pair of sunglasses and slide them on. Ariadne and Eames were huddled on the porch around two cups of tea. He nodded to them before setting out into the street. Six years ago, he’d stayed here while Mal grew heavily pregnant and Dom grew more distracted. They planned jobs in the kitchen using stubby junk drawer pencils. When she’d fallen asleep, he and Dom had taken to walking a few blocks to smoke cigars, a smell Mal could no longer tolerate.

Arthur had liked those walks. He liked Dom talking to him like Arthur was a beloved student rather than a colleague though with any other man it would have annoyed him. They’d talked about the nature of their job and what it might mean in another few years. Everything had been legitimate then, Dom had even recently published a paper that bore the telltale sign of Arthur’s editing.

And somehow, he’d lost count of the years. Foolish, but he wasn’t infallible. This lifetime was exciting, charged with innovation and possibilities. Just when the freshness was wearing off, it was marred by the tragedy of Mal’s death. Dom had fallen apart in a way Arthur had never thought possible. He’d lost people before, even his own children when mortality rates were worse and Dom had never been so fundamentally shaken. Become so much someone else. Arthur had dogged his heels through Europe, helpless and afraid as he had ever been in their years together.

“He’s gone mad.” Eames whispered to him one night when they were pressed thigh to thigh at a hotel bar in Marrakesh. “And he’ll drag you down with him, pet.”

“He’s my partner.” Arthur had finished off a shot of painfully strong spiced liquor.

“I could partner up. If you were ever looking to flee the sinking ship.” Eames’ eyelids had grown heavy, his smile sliding away entirely which made the extent of the offer perfectly clear to someone who knew him.

“Careful, Eames. I might start to think that you like me.” Arthur signaled for another round. 

“Can’t have that.” The rejection gracefully accepted and they never spoke of it again. Though Eames had taken to needling him more after that, so perhaps it had left something prickly and ugly between them.

The thing of it was that even then in that most desperate of times when he was half-sure that Dom had gone insane or that perhaps everyone else had finally gone crazy. Even then, he hadn’t given Eames’ offer any real consideration. Eames would make a good partner. He was unpredictable, kind, handsome and clever. It hadn’t even made Arthur pause. 

The sun was finally starting a lazy exit when he got back to the Cobb household. Yelling and laughter from the backyard heralded the return of the children. Eames was doubtless around back, chasing them into frenzy while Dom called for takeout. 

Ariadne was still folded up in her chair on the porch, the wrinkles in her forehead deepening as he approached.

“We must all seem like children to you.” She said softly.

“No.” He took Eames’ chair. “It’s a trap thinking that way. You’re never old enough to know better or to avoid making mistakes. Sometimes crucial ones. Like Fisher’s security detail.”

“How did you miss that?”

“Stress. Worry. They never stop tripping you up.”

“You were worried about Dom?”

“And the rest of the team. It was a dangerous game.”

“Limbo for you must have been the ultimate nightmare.”

“It would have been.... highly unpleasant.” He frowned, “It was strange though. It must have found a loophole in Dom’s curse. He lived down there and didn’t forget. Maybe technology has finally outpaced magic.”

“They grew old together.” She blurted out, “I didn’t tell anyone, it seemed...private. But they did. He got to grow old with her.”

“That’s...good. Thank you, for telling me.” It was perfect really. He’d finally had what Arthur had always wished for him. A full and complete life, even if was fiction.

“Dom probably won’t thank me for it.” She glanced at him sidelong.

“You may as well ask.” He offered her a slight smile.

“I don’t know where to start.” She laughed, rubbing a hand over her face, “I can’t really accept that it’s real.”

“Neither can I all the time.” He admitted. “I get caught up in the details of day to day life like anyone else.”

“Uncle Arthur!” Phillipa charged up the front steps, dark hair streaming out behind her.

“Hello, sweetheart.” He swept her up in his arms.

“I missed you.” She snuggled close. “Are you going to stay?”

“Maybe.” He closed his eyes and held her close. 

Chaos reigned for an hour, a messy attempt to cook and feed everyone. The kids took over, talking over one another pleased with so much adult attention. Baths followed, Phillipa demanding Ariadne help with hair brushing.

Eames and Arthur faced each other across the kitchen table, the ruckus down the hall preventing the moment from growing too heavy.

“Never had a chance, did I?” Eames spun a glass in this hand, the water turning to a small cyclone.

“No.” Arthur smiled, “But it wasn’t for lack of a good effort.”

“Thank you, Arthur. That’s a real salve to my wounded ego.” He let go of the glass, watching it wobble then steady itself, a few drops of water spilling onto the table. “Do you know what I thought when I first met you?”

“You told me I looked like a child playing dress-up, I believe.”

“What I thought, not what I said. I thought that you looked like a man carrying too much weight.”

“Does your correct insight make you feel any better?”

“No.” The smile was more than a little bitter and Arthur wasn’t sure if it was for him or what might have been. “Not in the least.” 

Eventually Eames and Ariadne made their excuses, fleeing back to the rented car. Arthur walked out onto the porch, resting his hands on the railing, staring out into the night. The screen door opened with a squeaking protest.

“Kids are asleep.” Dom stepped out to stand next to him, close enough that Arthur could smell bubble bath on his skin, but not close enough to touch.

“I should go. Back to Colorado.” 

“To die.”

“Maybe. It could be tomorrow or three years from now.” He lifted the flat of his hand to his forehead and rubbed at the first warning tingles of a headache.

“You shouldn’t be alone.” His voice was quiet, but steady. “No one should have to die alone.”

“I’ll be fine.” Arthur sighed, “It’s more than my time. I’m ready.”

“You should stay.”

“I don’t need your pity.” He said gently.

“It isn’t pity.” Dom’s fist slammed down on the railing with surprising force, rattling Arthur’s teeth. “You have all this crazy knowledge about me, about who I’ve been. I want those stories. They’re my life and I’ve got a right to know them.”

“So you want me to play Scheherazade then?” He turned on him, snarling. “To spill it out for you? Read the letters, the dossiers. Those I kept for you. Leaf through the art that I kept for myself. Don’t tear it out of me, Dom. I don’t have the heart for it anymore.”

“I have the right! Damnit Arthur, you can’t reveal all this and then just walk away from me. You can’t tell me you’ve loved me for a thousand years then crawl away to die. Is that how you see your story ending?”

“Of course not!” He bit out. “If it were my choice I would have died in 1933 when we were penniless and happy. I would have died in 1786 when we prospered and lived together for nearly twenty years, the longest time we ever had together. This is the last of the lifetimes I would have ended on. You’ve never been more unhappy and I’ve never been more afraid.”

“I’m not unhappy! I was, but now I have the children.”

“I know.” Arthur sighed, softening immediately. “I know, you do. Please, for nothing else if for the sake of the friendship we’ve had these last few years, just let me go.”

“No.” 

Dom reached out and wrapped his fingers around Arthur’s wrist, tugging him closer.

“Don’t.” Arthur protested.

“Stay with me. I don’t want to lose someone else I love.”

“You don’t love me.”

“But I have before. Who knows? There’s time left.”

Their hands fit easily together, each finger resting with it’s mate.

“I can’t.”

“You can. You’ve looked after me for so long. Let me take care of you. Just a little while.”

Resigned, Arthur closed his eyes and leaned forward until their foreheads touched gently. They stood there in the rising moonlight, their shadows entwining until they disappeared into the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Like the fic, but hate commenting on A03? [Feed the Author on LJ](http://dragons-muse.livejournal.com/66055.html)


End file.
